After Forever (26 page)

“I don’t understand.” It was all I could say
because this was crazy. Everything happening, everything I was
seeing, it was all crazy. Something from a nightmare. Something
that wasn’t real.

“Your sister isn’t what she seems, Nate,”
the girl said. “Neither is the sheriff.” She spat out the last word
as if it was poison.

McNaley laughed. “She’s talking nonsense.
This boy has known me his entire life, he knows who I am.”

“Why should I believe you?” I asked her
softly.

She turned to me and there was such sadness
in her eyes that I had to catch my breath. “Because he said you
know who he is, not what he is.” She turned away and looked
pointedly at both Talia and the sheriff. “You don’t know what we
all are.”

Then, as if on cue, the clouds shifted and
silvery moonlight spilled down into the forest. All three bodies
began to twitch and transform in front of me. Wiry hair sprouted
from their skin, eyes grew larger, feet and hands turned into paws
with claws extending from them, and before I knew it, I was looking
into the faces of three very large and very pissed off wolves.

I had to protect what was mine. He may not
realize it yet, but we were destined to be together. I felt it in
the depths of my soul and I would not fail to kill any who stand
against us.

A growl worked its way out of my chest and
into the night. I faced my adversaries with my head held high and
ready to do some damage. Nate fell to the ground and then scooted
backwards, his eyes large and unbelieving. He didn’t want to
believe what he was seeing, but he would. He would have to.

Talia was weak and backed away from me. She
only liked to pray on those who were helpless. If I were in my
human state, as my grandmother was, she wouldn’t think twice before
devouring me. But as an equal, in a state that had been a part of
me for far longer than it had her, she was no match. And she knew
it.

McNaley was brave. I am sure that he had
eaten my grandmother’s heart which made him believe he was stronger
than me; more powerful. But he was wrong. He didn’t know the truth.
The secret that my grandmother had protected for all of these years
was mine alone. And now they would pay for what they’ve done.

The animals moved so quickly it was hard to
see what was going on. Growls and howls filled the night air with
terror and sweat broke out all over my body. Pure adrenaline pushed
me to my feet. Pure fear and self-preservation got me out of the
line of fire. And pure instinct had me pulling my gun from its
holster.

The one who I thought was Talia seemed to be
trying to stay out of the fight. Instead she focused her beastly
eyes on me and bared her teeth as if warning me not to flee or
she’d kill me. My mind was having a hard time accepting that this
was my sister, but my eyes were playing back the scene in which she
had transformed, forcing me to believe what I had seen or admit
that I had gone crazy.

The other two were tearing at each other.
Teeth were scraping against teeth and skin was being torn open with
furious cries and screams as claws raked across flesh. There was a
tangy aroma in the air. Blood mixed with fear and the distinctive
smell of wet and mangy dog.

I wanted to take aim and shoot. I wanted to
feel in control of a situation that there was no controlling. But
who did I aim for? Sheriff McNaley who had been a part of my life
since birth, or a girl who claimed that there was more to the story
of my father’s death? I didn’t want to believe that Talia was a
part of something so monstrous, but I had seen the blood on her
with my own two eyes. Did that mean she had killed the girl’s
grandma? Or was there some other explanation?

Sensing my hesitation with the gun in my
hand, the beast that had been Talia charged at me. I was a fast
runner, but I was no match for her and she was on me in seconds. My
gun went sailing through the air and landed a few feet away from
us. I pushed at her massive chest with all my strength, trying to
avoid getting ripped to shreds by the teeth that were snapping at
me.

To my immense surprise, I succeeded and she
hit the ground with a hard thud. I didn’t stop to think about what
I was doing. I lunged for the gun and had just felt the cool steel
with my fingers when I felt those teeth close around my ankle.
Talia dragged me backwards toward her and ripped at the fabric
concealing the tender flesh of my calf. I kicked back at her with
my free feet and had a brief respite where I was able to at least
turn over and pull myself into a sitting position.

Then she was on me again, pushing on my
chest so that my back struck the ground with a jarring crack.
Saliva dripped onto my chest and she leaned her bloody muzzle
toward my face, hot rancid breath tickled my cheek and I gripped
the gun harder. She hadn’t noticed that I had it. I just needed to
get my arm out from under her weight and I would be free. I
couldn’t let the fact that I believed she was my sister stop me
from realizing she was a beast.

She smiled a wolfy grin then, a sight so
hideous that I knew it would haunt my nightmares for years to come.
Blood mixed with saliva and stained her white teeth where they met
her gums. I imagined that I could see torn flesh left in her mouth,
but I closed my eyes against the image. If I was going to die, I
would die fighting. With what was left of my strength, I dug my
heels into the ground and pushed upwards with my body.

It worked. I threw her off balance just
enough to free my arm and aim the gun at her chest. I watched her
eyes as they grew even larger with recognition, then I fired.
Instead of the dead weight of a body falling on my chest, I was
suddenly free. Another wolf, I wasn’t sure if it was the Sheriff or
the girl, had barreled into Talia just as the gun went off, hurling
both of their bodies into the truck of a tree with a sickening
crunch.

I pulled myself up to my feet, but limped
unsteadily toward the broken bodies on my injured ankle. It was
like I was watching something magical take place, some sort of
movie special effects. Before my eyes, the bodies of the wolves
began to transform. Talia’s features stretched out and then began
to shrink back to their normal shape. Her body twitched and jerked
as her spine straightened out and her limbs began to look human
again. Then she was still.

Shaking, I knelt down beside her naked body
and checked for a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. I sighed in
relief and began assessing her body for more damages, namely the
gunshot wound that I was sure I had inflicted. But other than
bruises and a few scrapes and cuts, she was fine. Her breathing was
returning to normal and for all I could tell, it looked like she
was sleeping.

Then I heard a soft whimpering a little
farther away and I hobbled over to the source. The girl was lying
naked on her side. She was in worse condition than Talia, but she
was conscious and weeping from the pain. Her body was bruised and
bloody. Teeth and claw marks sliced through the pale skin and oozed
blood. I gasped and kneeled beside her when I realized that wasn’t
the worst of it though. Because there on her side, where her hand
was frantically working to stop the flow of blood, was the gunshot
wound that I had been looking for on Talia.

It was over, I thought numbly, while my
teeth chattered and my hand shook over the gaping hole in my side.
After all of these years, it was finally over. I would be cursed no
more. It was almost a relief really. I had been living with this
secret my entire life, it would be peaceful to not be at the mercy
of the moon anymore. But the thought of dying and never having a
chance to explain to Nate what had really happened was almost more
than I could bare. So I cried for my salvation and I cried for my
loss.

When I felt his warm hand cover mine, I
jolted with shock. It was so much more powerful than I had ever
imagined. My love for him was as intense and steady as the pull of
the moon’s power over my transformations. It had been a part of me
from the moment I had seen him weep over his father’s body the
night he had died. I had been years younger than him, but the
wolf’s hold on me had matured both my mind and my emotions from the
moment I was bitten. I knew I loved him. I knew he belonged to
me.

I had wept then. Tears had streamed down my
face in salty rivers for what I had done. Even though I hadn’t been
the one who had killed his father, I had been the one who had
changed those who did. It had always been me. I was the first in
this town to change.

I had been practically a baby at the time, a
toddler just learning to stand on my own two feet. My parents had
decided on a camping trip at Yellowstone. I didn’t know what was
happening, only that I was having fun and I had a whole campsite
and forest to explore. It was night when the wolves came. It was
sitting around a campfire that I watched the blood of my parents
spilled when my life was spared. A single bite to my chubby leg and
then the wolves had left me to my fate.

The park rangers came, and then the police.
My grandmother was called, she was my only family now. But then,
once I was safe at home with her in the mountains of Colorado, the
first full moon came and with my change, I attacked her. She was
the second to change.

Years went by after that and I met a friend
in school who loved me. Talia Smalls was sweet and innocent and as
much as I loved her, I envied her for her normalcy. So I chose to
bite her. She was the third.

Her father, a deputy, knew what she was. She
disappeared the night of her first change and he and his partner
went looking for her. What they found was the two of us, rolling in
the forest like a couple of pups. Her father had protected her…
protected us. But the other one, the partner, had coveted us our
power and he had forced Talia to bite him. Then he began to hunt
down other wolves and kill them. With each heart he consumed, he
grew more powerful, taking on what those he killed had been.

When her father had figured out the truth,
he confronted McNaley, and McNaley had killed him. Talia was too
far gone by then. Something in her was darker than me. Something in
her relished in the predatory sensation she felt when she was in
her wolf form. So she began working with McNaley to consume all
they could find. She did the dirty work by killing those he sought,
but she saved the hearts for him. They killed my grandmother
because they didn’t know our secret. They thought she was more
powerful than me, they thought she was the first. But she wasn’t.
And now I would die for all the evil I had caused.

“It’s okay, don’t move, you’ll be okay.”
Nate murmured to me.

He put his other hand on my cheek and I
turned my face into his palm, savoring the feeling of his skin on
mine. Tears were still streaming down my face and he tried to wipe
them away. I was happy that he had shot me instead of his sister.
He didn’t deserve to live with the guilt of her death on his
conscious. Now that he knew what she was, maybe he could help her;
remind her of her own humanity.

“Who are you?” He whispered.

I laughed, the sound ragged and hoarse
through my pain. “My name is Micha and I have loved you for as long
as I can remember.”

I saw recognition then, as his soul
recognized mine and his heart believed what mine had always known.
My eyes drifted closed just as his lips brushed across mine and I
knew that I was finally where I had always belonged.

It was strange, this new sensation.

The transformations were slightly painful,
but the exhilaration of running through the woods was worth it.
When Talia had bit me, I didn’t realize then what it would mean for
me. It wasn’t until later, during the next full moon that I fully
understood. But she had been there, holding my hands and looking
into my eyes as we had changed together.

Micha… my soul mate.

With all of the heartache she had lived
through, I vowed to give her the happy ending she deserved. So we
lived that way; a small population of humans who changed to wolves
in the silvery moonlight in the Colorado skies. More were changed,
life went on. But the secret of what we were stayed hidden away in
the eyes of those who were like us and the humans we chose to
protect in our town were never aware of the danger that lurked with
one bite from our teeth.

It wasn’t perfect… it wasn’t ideal… but we
had each other and that was enough. Ours was a different kind of
fairytale…

And they all
lived…

Happily Ever
After

The End